CyberTech News

What if you wanted to do some business using open source software? You are most probably already doing that even if you may not realize it. Open source virtual worlds have different licenses and they are briefly covered here.

Consider this example: You pay to a developer company to make you an e-commerce web site. They do it and you launch it with a marketing campaign, everything is rolling smoothly, money flows in. Most probably almost everything is done using open source software components. Why? Because it is cheaper and easier that way. 

Let’s see what software (just an example) is needed to run your e-commerce web site:

• Web site runs on Linux operating system (GPL) – you save in average 5€/month when compared to proprietary operating systems
• Apache web server (Apache open source license) – de facto standard web server
• MySQL database (GPL)
• Joomla content management system (GPL)
• VirtueMart shopping cart (GPL)
• And your customer may use Firefox web browser (GPL)

To put it briefly, business is possible. The above example is good in the sense that virtual worlds are used fundamentally the same way:
You make a virtual world and add some e-commerce aspects to it. Users use a virtual world viewer and come to browse your world and spend some money. In addition to that, you can sell your virtual world to another company if you wish.

Why licensed? Can’t the software just be available and used? 

If a company writes software, they hold the copyrights to the code. License defines how this company want to make the software available for others. License can be purely commercial, like is the case with Microsoft Windows. License can give the binaries for free use, but give no rights to the source code, like Skype. Open source licenses give users access to the source code too. Licensing does not mean transfer of the copyright.

A company can license a software using as many licenses it wants; for example Linden Lab Second Life Viewer is licensed in GPL, but it also has a commercial license for 3rd party developers. In both cases, the copyright owner of the viewer code is Linden Lab.  

How are different virtual world software distributions licensed?

OpenSim, the apache of virtual world servers, is using BSD license. BSD license is liberal, and some consider it business friendly. You can modify, split, chop, extend, deep-fry, wok, shrink wrap and sell it. Only thing to remember is to distribute the contributors.txt file with the software, so that the customer knows who made the original version of the software. No other strings attached. 

For example OpenLife is using Opensim to run their virtual worlds and they have developed the code further on their own. Openlife may publish their version of the virtual world server software using GPL license later, and this all is perfectly legal and in harmony with Opensim BSD license. realXtend server and Modrex Opensim extensions are using BSD license as well. 

Second Life Viewer is using GPL license, but is also available with a commercial license. The commercial license means that you get the source code and can develop your own version of the viewer, and use the result without giving the source code to your customer. 

realXtend viewer is using GPL license.  It is using GPL, because it is a modified SL Viewer. GPL license demands that if you use the source code to make a derived work, then the derived work must be licensed in GPL. GPL says that I can use the software for any purpose, even sell it, as long as I provide source code for my customers without any charges. Darkstar and Wonderland are also using GPL.

GPL makes some business cases unusable. If I made a better viewer for Second Life using the SL Viewer source code, I am obliged to give the source code to my customers for free, who can then continue to enhance the viewer. So I lose the rarity power which I gain from my own changes to the software because they are easily copied on. This is the area where many companies have made expensive mistakes.

Why companies choose to develop open source software in the first place?

Usually because the resources are limited and the task at hand is big. Using suitable open source license allows other companies and interested parties to join the effort.

Incompatible licenses

It may be very hard to mix software that use incompatible licensing. If you have GPL software and your own closed source application, there is no simple way to bundle them. If you do, you need to put your own application under GPL too, because it becomes part of the derived work with the GPL software – this is simple, but may destroy your application business.

Summary

Open source is a smart way to use resources and distribute effort. It is here to stay, increasingly so. It enables business, but it also changes some business models.

All the open source virtual world software available today, enables the basic business model, which is familiar from the web: You can build your own world on top of open source software, and generate income. 

Resources:

GPL FAQ: http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.html
Wikipedia page about open source
Book how to produce open source software (free)
realXtend web site: http://www.realxtend.org
Opensim web site: http://www.opensimulator.org
Darkstar web site: http://www.projectdarkstar.com

Uncategorized bsd, business, Darkstar, gpl, modrex, OpenSim, realXtend, wonderland

(via modrex.wordpress.com)

Background: ModRex is an interface between the OGRE-based RealXtend viewer and OpenSimulator. Explanations of how to compile modrex under Linux and Windows can be found here.

Info: All images contained in the posts can be clicked to get the full resolution image.

Initial Hypergrid Tests: Using the hypergrid capability in opensim v. 8822 and modrex v. 99, I visited a few regions to take snapshots. This was previously not possible since modrex did not permit multiple regions–only a single one. Here is a hyperjump to The Study of Racialism sim operated by Backintyme Publishing, via the list of publicly available hypergrid nodes:

link-region 1002 1002 sim.thestudyofracialism.org:9000:racialism

The image on the left is obtained by toggling SHIFT-R inside of the rexviewer, and the image on the right is the default OGRE-based rendering. The following differences are notable:

• Tree prims, flexiprims (the flag) and llparticlesystems are not implemented. Rex has other means, often of better quality, for achieving these effects but they not carried through for pre-existing opensim worlds (which seems to be the purpose of modrex).
• The avatar in the LLviewer mode has no clothing. A rebake of the character didn’t work.
• Is it possible to texturemap the terrain in the rexviewer? Not sure if this is yet surfaced through modrex?
• texture animation (the flame) doesn’t work and is shown instead as a composite texture of the individual animation frames.

After teleporting to Cyberlandia (which is another entry in the public hypergrid list), we can compare results here:

The mountain on the left is not rendered correctly in rex, possibly because of a height-based terrain texture that is missing? Instead, the top of the mountain appears black. I like the fade-out of rendering in rex (the shale blue rendering of the tower in the distance), as opposed to the sudden, and discrete, jumps found in the LLviewer.

Rexviewer has a lot of potential for opensim, and so, the work to get it to be compatible with existing opensim content is an ongoing process. As opensim users use this viewer, they may wish to take advantage of features that are not available in the LLviewer such as:

• The ability to see shadows, at least on the terrain (I’ve not figured out how to see shadows on other geometry). The addition of a “turn on shadows” in the viewer would help existing opensim content. The way it is done now is on a per-object basis.
• The ability to produce a  new range of lighting conditions and particle approaches

OpenSim, realXtend modrex, OGRE, OpenSim

Lot of things are happening around Modrex because it is being actively developed by the realXtend team and it glues Opensim and realXtend together.  Modrex is a DLL that makes stock Opensim to be a realXtend server.

Albert from Hispagrid uploaded Modrex binaries. The download package includes all the servers you need to run realXtend server side. Thank you Albert and everyone at Hispagrid! Albert intends to upload more realXtend content in the near future.

For instructions how to compile Modrex yourself can be found from Opensim wiki. Check it also if you don’t know what Modrex actually is.

Paul Fishwick opened a new blog modrex.wordpress.com to record experiences and issues, the contents, when suitable for republishing, will be aggregated also to CyberTech News.

Hypergrid works with Modrex – this is great news! One problem seems to be that OGRE rendering in the realXtend viewer is inefficient with prims – it is performing really well only with realXtend native 3D meshes.

OpenSim, realXtend binary, download, hispagrid, hypergrid, modrex

OpenSim, realXtend modrex, OpenSim, python, realXtend

realXtend project posted a note at their web site:

The two-month period of seemingly quiet research and planning is nearing its end and we have decided on our strategy for the first half of 2009. We will be focusing on creating a new viewer and continuing work on the realXtend modularization effort as well as improving our authentication (OpenID!) and distributed storage services. We will also be working on global voice and instant messaging, which will form the backbone of future realXtend communications. We welcome you all to discuss the issues on our email list at http://groups.google.com/group/realxtend. We welcome everyone to participate and you can expect more news shortly.

It seems that realXtend is taking the new cooperation with Opensim seriously as they will continue the work with Modrex. 

See also earlier related news items:

ModRex 0.2A now in SVN (Jan 7th)
realXtend starts a new from-scratch viewer (Dec 13th, 2008)

OpenSim, realXtend, security im, modrex, openid, OpenSim, platform, realXtend, voice

Dear reader,

you did maybe already notice my strong interest in the vision of 3D web and usage of 3D software in real life collaborating scenarios.

Following twitter i found this very interesting new post of cleverzebra.com – the free Virtual Worlds for Business Q2 2009 ebook.

It is still very focused on training and meeting scenarios, but since this seems very simple to understand if we talk bout the benefits of 3D our first RL usecase will be training focused as well. You will read some more news on the Rl-usecases in ~2 weeks. Later on this year we will focus on other, non training based usecases.

Back to the ebook, i did enjoy the overview. And yes, opensim did receive a pretty nice summary. Talking about meetings and trainings, opensim is a very usable platform. The main point we need improvement are:

• embeded application view (application sharing)
• voice (3D spatial sound from each participant).
• improved NINJA-physics (per joint definition of possible axis) would help

Embedded applications

Being in a 3D environment, it does not make any sense to use it just as a chat tool and open your document to share (or the data do look at, like measurements or a presentation) in a separate window. While collaborating on document (”move my mouse” techniques) may be just step 2, viewer must be included, soon. Best way would be to implement a handful of widely used clients. From what the industry demand is, usage of RDP(remote desktop protocol) is essential. it offers remote access even to the desktop (windows xp, vista, 7) and collaboration natively. The next important would be the usage of NX, which is well supported on *nix platforms, as well as on windows. its available open source and with commercial support. its capable of handling slow links and carries stuff like the graphical linux desktop . While it does not sound like it makes sense, ssh would be my choice #3. it has proven to be the secure transport for other things, and maybe is a tool that even helps to spread opensim by making opensim serversupport on linux easier.

A good place to learn from is project wonderland, based on darkstar server. As an basic intro, the video is great. As well, all people into opensim development and projects should spend 1h on their homepage. Just to add some visions. Check also CTN article: Follow the rabbit: how to test drive Wonderland.

voice

While there are some commercial add-ons and realxtend-groupd is working on the next voice generation based on XMPP / telepathy, we still have no solution, yet.

Be aware, that we need voice that is not only spatial, but enterprise-ready. it must be able to pass firewalls like skype does. Any technique that needs dedicated ports for incoming connections does not make sense.

The Lack of voice is for RL usecases maybe as essential like the lack of groups for inworld activities.

NINJA

NINJA? uh? Ninja Physics have been introduced recently. They are not even covered in the ebook. If you are not aware, maybe watch the videos here or here. Think about simulations in technical or biological areas. The only thing, that is missing right now is to define “this is a bowl joint, the possible movement are x/y/z degrees – and you did create a shoulder. That way medical classroom or remote diagnostic meetings would come pretty close. NINJA will be an enabler for some RL usecases.

I will not dive into graphics, since i think the work of e.g. realXtend is outlined in the ebook, at other blog sections and coming to us (via modrex), soon.

Cheers,

Ralf

Article represents personal opinion – trademarks apply – www.ralf-haifisch.biz

Darkstar, OpenSim, realXtend cleverzebra, linux, modrex, MPK20, ninja, Ogre3D, OpenSim, project darkstar, project wonderland, rdp, real life usage, voice

I wrote about Sim on Demand at the OSGrid forum : http://osgrid.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=582#p1955 .

Since then, I kept that in mind and watched for the ongoing work on this project, thought about usescases and had some dialogues with the inventor Balaji Sowmyanarayanan.

Some background: Sim on Demand offers exactly this, sims to host regions just when you need them. It is based on amazons EC2 (the biggest xen virtualization in the world I know of) , a web cloud “CPU-power on demand” technology. The sizing of the machines is quite nice (http://aws.amazon.com/ec2/#instance) and the internet uplink even better. Labsy uses that technology and puts customizing on top, so you can use these linux based virtual machines to actually run opensim. Storage of the customized images is done into amazons S3 web cloud storage cluster. That means, that you can have 20 performant regions up in ~5 minutes if you are prepared in advance by having a free amazon EC2 account.

You are charged via amazon based on CPU, RAM, traffic and storage consumption.

Sim on demand now offers both standalone simulators and simulators connected to osgrid (yes, grid mode regions server). As far as I understand, realXtend modrex is in development, but once ready, it is also possible to run realXtend server this way.

I read about a Valentines day offer when I revisited the new version yesterday. This offer is (while I do not want to do marketing..) everything from interesting (give a SL-based person a nice try for Opensim) to very funny.

http://sim.ec29.com/Say-it-with-island.html

What for?

Since it is possible to login to this linux – I would think of

- Event hosting (workshops, presentations, live concerts etc)
- Backup (make an oar-backup and if your server crashes, your easily back on)
- Testing (sandboxed on a separate system, not confusing your productive environment)
- a place to unpack the nice freebie oar-files you get, review items and take them in inventory
- And for the upcoming professional usage:

• Prepared classrooms
• Prepared student environment
• Ready to run customer presentation
• Trial-installations/environment

So everything you would use virtualization for in newer IT-scenarios, or rent real rooms in real life scenarios for, makes sense.

The pricing, however, is a little bit expensive for 24/7 usage right now, but perfect for all non-steady demand.

Accounting

The actual pricelist and a calculator is placed on http://sim.ec29.com/Subscription-Why-How.html#cost.

If you want to review booked services , that is possible on amazon.

How to?

I will post a comic strip as an easy howto shortly, but should that not keep interested people away from signing up to EC2 and just play yourself.

Wishes

Some possible improvement I would find helpful for the future:

• option to give X/Y and region names on startup (while this is possible via login to unix now)
• web frontend to load/save oar service per region
• decommission of unused instances via launcher
• make wiki easier to locate information by menu.

Summary

So, this is for sure one of the great ideas to bring two young technologies together and maybe even web 3D 2.0 . There are already other -“on demand” providers like gogrid.com and services which are not limited to the linux platform, so we can expect prices to drop a little bit while wishes for other platforms are fulfilled. Labsi however is a early bird and has some experience and expertise that will give him a pole position in this race.

Cheers,

Ralf

Article represents personal opinion – trademarks apply – www.ralf-haifisch.biz

Links:

http://aws.amazon.com/ec2/ – amazon web computing cloud
http://console.aws.amazon.com/ - the new webcloud dashboard
http://simondemand.ec29.com/index.html - Sim on Demand Subscrition and Account management
http://sim.ec29.com/ - The Wiki
http://getsatisfaction.com/simondemand – User support forum

OSGrid, OpenSim, realXtend amazon, howto, modrex, OpenSim, OSGrid, serversizing, sim on demand, traffic

KirstenLee Cinquetti reports that the R17 viewer is in schedule and the estimated release will be at the end of February. Now the code merge work from realXtend viewer 0.4 is 75% ready. The majority of the work is to write parts of realXtend code again to make it compile for all major platforms; Linux, Windows and Mac. R-series of viewers are specifically tailored to work with OpenLifeGrid, the biggest OpenSim-based grid. 

The first deliverable from KirstenLee’s work will be the OpenLifeGrid specific R17 viewer, which has most of the features from previous R-series of viewers and also most of the realXtend features. After R17 is released, KirstenLee told to CTN that the next step is to take the latest SL Viewer, and backport the code from R17 on top of that. The result will be cross platform realXtend viewer, based on the latest official Linden Lab SL Viewer.

The realXtend team is working hard to get Modrex fully functional, and it is expected to have most of the functionality ready by the end of February. Modrex is a library that makes a standard Opensim to a realXtend cabable server (Opensim + modrex = realXtend server). OpenLifeGrid is expected to utilize Modrex to support the realXtend features of the upcoming R17 viewer.

OpenLife, OpenSim, realXtend linux, modrex, openlifegrid, OpenSim, os x, r17, realXtend, sl viewer, viewer

A picture is of course worth a thousand words.

How to get it?

Please remember, this is alpha software. Not like OpenSim ‘it sort of kinda works’ alpha, but really early code. It may break. It may trash your sim. It may kill small children. You have been warned. Please note, this requires a working realXtend authentication server – if you have a dedicated server on a public IP, you may use the ‘users.realxtend.net‘ service, otherwise a copy of the auth server is included with the standard realXtend server package.

SVN – ModRex is only availible via SVN at the moment.
svn checkout http://forge.opensimulator.org/svn/modrex/branches/0.2-alpha/

Known Issues

This version is not compatible with the Second Life viewer at all due to the Auth server dependency, installing modrex will disable SL based logins. This is a known issue and will be fixed in the next release.

Final Note

This is a preview release and does not construe a final public version not something in search of widespread testing, we’re still actively working on this – a more polished final version is currently in progress which I will encourage widespread testing. This version is not feature-complete with realXtend 0.4 – if you want to use realXtend features in a production or semiproduction environment, I would recommend using the standard server software for the moment.

OpenSim, realXtend modrex, modules, realXtend